Deal reached to lift American tariffs on Canada; Increase in asylum seekers coming to Canada

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the full lifting of punitive U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs is “just pure good news” for Canadians as they head into the long weekend.

A jubilant Trudeau announced the end of the year-long trade dispute at Hamilton steelmaker Stelco Friday afternoon. Under the agreement, U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum imports, as well as retaliatory Canadian tariffs on American goods, will be removed within 48 hours.

Number of people seeking asylum in Canada well up from a decade ago

The number of people seeking asylum in Canada is well above the previous peak a decade ago, but Statistics Canada says the pace of asylum claims did slow down last year compared to 2017.

The federal agency says in 2015, the year the Trudeau Liberals were elected, there were about 16-thousand asylum claimants. Two years later that had tripled to more than 50-thousand claims, but growth slowed last year as the number of claims hit 55-thousand.

Preliminary figures released on flooding damage

Preliminary figures show about 17-thousand-500 homes were either hit by this spring’s devastating floods in multiple provinces or deemed at risk.

That number is expected to rise as insurance claims come in. The data from Statistics Canada also suggests some 460 kilometres of roadways were either washed out or cut off by rising rivers.